


Return

by murdur



Series: Love's Favour [2]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon, Sifki Week, or maybe some fantasy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 13:52:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15244809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murdur/pseuds/murdur
Summary: Loki awaits Sif's return from war.





	Return

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MyScarlettLady](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyScarlettLady/gifts).



> Written for Sifki Week Day 3: Object  
> This was inspired by a comment from the lovely [MyScarlettLady](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyScarlettLady/pseuds/MyScarlettLady) on my story [Token](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12836154) and serves as the second part to that story. Reading that fic is not required but may be helpful for added context.

Loki sits in his study, anxiety plaguing his thoughts. His pen scratches at the parchment in the flickering candle light, his elegant scrawl gleaming with wet ink as dusk creeps in through the high windows.

Dispatches from the field have made their way to him. Messages of impending victory, though not without great loss cover his desk. Delivered once a week, they are artless communication, emotionless and factual. They do little to still his concern. And so he writes his unsent replies, allowing his hand to communicate what his lips cannot, staining his fingers with their inky whisper: _Come back to me, come back to me, come back..._

A sound comes to him, distant at first but growing louder to break through his reverie. A horn is trumpeting below, beyond the gates of the city, signaling the arrival he has prayed for each night. The sound lifts him to his feet, rushes him to the window and he can just see the first spill of victors returning home.

With shaking fingers, he dons his cape and bursts out of the chamber and past the royal guard sent to summon him. His heart is racing but he wills his feet to slow, carrying him gracefully to the balcony above the street.

He observes the warparty’s return, stoically nodding his greeting to the weary looking battalion. However his eyes search frantically, looking at each face that moves below. From his position, his view is distant but encompassing. He tries to steady his breath.

The dead are amongst the victors, bodies draped upon warhorses and carried by their weary compatriots upon stretchers. With each passing face, his alarm grows.

When he sees it, a scrap of green bright amongst the soiled and spattered warriors his heart leaps and then crashes. Pushing off from the balcony ledge, forgetting himself, he turns and races through the palace hallways and down the many golden steps to the street below.

The men stop and bow, making way for their prince until he reaches the stretcher he searched for. The one with the arm swinging from underneath the sheet covering the body. An arm bound in green velvet.

“No. You promised. Please, no,” he whispers, ignoring the many eyes upon him, and reaches for the edge of the covering to rip it back.

A young face stares back with lifeless eyes. The boy looks no older than an adolescent. The men around him wait but Loki cannot find any words for his confusion, his relief.

“She tried to save him, Your Highness,” a soldier bows near him gesturing to the tourniquet that was once the prince’s cloth, “but the bleeding was too strong.”

“Where is she?” he spins, not caring to mask the desperation in his voice.

 

* * *

 

A healer pulls back the curtain that surrounds the sick bed, allowing him entrance and letting it fall behind him as she takes her leave, offering a small amount of privacy amongst the many occupied beds in the hospital wing.

He stands, feet that raced the floors now suddenly unsure and still below him. His eyes drink her in, noting the deep purple under her eyes and the blood seeping through her many bandages. But she is alive. She turns her head at the sound of the curtain’s rustle and pushes herself to sit up against her pillows.  

“My Prince,” Sif raises her arm to her chest in salute, wincing in pain as the motion pulls at the bandages the cover her shoulder and ribs.

He steps forward, and finds that his voice fails him. The warrior gestures for him to sit, and he accepts the invitation, seating himself on the edge of the bed near her elbow.

“I hope the victory pleases you, My Lord,” Sif smiles tiredly.

“More than you could ever know,” Loki nods deeply.

“I kept my word to you,” Sif reaches below her covers and lifts  his favored blade between them in her palms. “Although I fear I lost your cloth.”

“I feared I lost much more than that,” Loki confesses, his heart constricting in his chest. He raises his hands and gently guides Sif’s fingers to encircle the blade in her palms, resting his hands atop them. “Keep it, Sif.”

“Loki,” his name from her lips is a balm, a benediction.

“Keep it,” he repeats and leans forward to kiss her, soft and long. “It’s yours. I’m yours.”


End file.
